I'm really pretty bad at cooking.

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I’m going a little bit insane from something I can’t discuss on a public forum, so I’m going to write a completely insane blog entry about Chickpeas And Carrots. WOOO. Oh my God.

Anyway, so shortly after Christmas I was at home having a friend over for dinner. I wanted something vegetable-y, because I had been eating a lot of meat, and easy, because I was tired. I settled on whole-wheat cous cous (sssss, Jacqui) with carrots and chickpeas. I more or less made up the recipe, but I suppose it was inspired by this excellent stew. I basically just put on chickpeas to cook (from dry; I sort of knew they would never properly tenderize, but decided to go for it anyway), and then began to saute onions, garlic, carrots. Probably. I’m trying to analyze the bowl in front of me—which was in the freezer for a while, don’t worry—and can’t really remember what was in it.

Really all I remember is two things:

1. My friend was like, “How can I help?” And I was like, “Meh, it’s fine.” And he was like, “Did you remember to take pictures for your blog?” and I was like “AAAAHHH!”

Oh, it actually looks pretty good here.

2. I burned the whole thing horribly because we were playing What Did You Get For Hanukkah, and I got distracted.

Anyway, I added a lot of spices: cinnamon (feeling inspired by my dad’s and my Indian cooking during Christmas), cumin, red pepper flakes (of course; and too many), and possibly others. Who knows.

Basically, it ended up too spicy, and I did not look forward to leftovers. (However, aforementioned friend said it was good, which was nice of him.)

As you can see, it wasn’t. But there was beer.

Then, in later iterations during Austerity, I realized I could just put a lot of tomato sauce and parmesan cheese on it. So I did. This made it pretty good. I don’t know why. The moral is that if you add cheese to it, it will probably taste good.

Chickpeas and Carrots with Cous CousI do believe this would be good if done properly; I like carrots and chickpeas together. I just don’t really know the proper spices to include.

I’m not going to lie by making up proportions for this recipe; just eyeball it.

If you cook chickpeas from dry, do so in advance; it will take several hours to get them fully cooked. I only cooked mine for about an hour; half are tender, half are unpleasantly crunchy. Obviously, this is bad. I KNOW. Shut up.

Saute garlic and onions in the usual manner; add spices of your choosing, and stir until fragrant. (I stole this language from every recipe ever. I didn’t even do it.) Add carrots, chopped as you wish, ideally in cute circles. Saute until tender; it might be a good idea to add some water, cover the skillet, and steam a bit, to hasten cooking.